216 REPORT OP THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



to the edge and fall to the ground, possibly reviving from the effects of 

 the small dose. The escape of these individuals can be easily prevented 

 by simply stiching a rim of raw cotton or cotton-batting to the sheet 

 and thoroughly saturating it also with the coal oil. 



Should so many of the beetles escape from the prosecution of this 

 remedy that the injuries of their larvae become marked, or should the 

 remedy be applied after the eggs have already been deposited, the larvae 

 may be destroyed by syringing the vines with a solution of whale-oil 

 soap (two pounds of soap to fifteen gallons of water) or by dusting lime 

 upon the leaves, either by means of a sifter or by blowing it from a bel- 

 lows. 



No parasite has been discovered as yet upon this insect, but that they 

 are attacked by a fungoid disease seems probable from the fact that 

 specimens which Mr. Parker sent us, and which were found under the 

 bark of the vines, were fastened to the bark and surrounded by a mass 

 of white fungus spores. 



THE ASPARAGUS BEETLE. 



{Criocet'is asparagi Linn.) 



Order Coleoptera; family Chrysomelidae. 



Gnawing holes into the young heads of asparagus, and laying oval black eggs upon 

 them, a small red, yellow, and black beetle, the larvae of which (small, brown, slug- 

 like grubs) also feed upon the young heads, and the second brood upon the full- 

 grown plant. (Plate III, fig. 4.) 



The asparagus crop, in Europe, has long suffered from the attacks of 

 several insect enemies, the most noted of which is the one above men- 

 tioned. On this side of the Atlantic, however, asparagi^ had always 

 enjoyed perfect immunity from insect ravages until, in 1859, this 

 European pest was accidentally introduced in the vicinity of New 

 York City. It almost immediately spread out into the noted asparagus 

 beds of Queens County, Long Island, and by 1862 had multiplied to 

 such an extent as to occasion a loss of over one-third of the crop in 

 some localities. In this year it first attracted the notice of Dr. Fitch, 

 and his observations are published in the Transactions of the New York 

 State Agricultural Society for 1862. Since that date the insect has been 

 spreading slowly eastward on Long Island, northward in Connecticut 

 and New York, and westward and southward in New Jersey and East> 

 em Pennsylvania. 



The past season the worst reports of its injuries have come from Bur- 

 lington County, New Jersey, which locality it reached for the first time 

 in 1878, and in 1879 a correspondent, writing May 15, said : " Twenty- 

 five per cent, of the market crop of Burlington County has already been 

 destroyed." 



The life history of the asparagus beetle is briefly as follows : Upon 

 the appearance of the plants in early spring, and just before the culti- 

 vators are ready to begin bunching for the market, the beetles come 

 forth in great numbers from their hibernating quarters — under sticks, 

 stones, rubbish, and especially under the sphnters of wood on fences, 

 under the scaly bark of trees — and commence gnawing the tops of the 

 young plants. They pair and lay their eggs very soon. The eggs are 

 a long oval in shape, about one-sixteenth of an inch in length, and are 

 nearly black in color. They are invariably placed endwise upon the 

 plant, as shown in the figure. (Plate III, fig. 4.) They are usually seen 



